Victory in eye of beholder for Hancock

The Hancock girls basketball team came out strong in the second half Thursday to outscore South 22-8 to cruise to a 37-19 victory. Neither team had a player score in double figures.

"A win is a win," Hancock coach Rocky Wills said. "The girls fought from the start to the end. We usually do that whether we are on the up side of the game or on the down side of the game. We had a sloppy first quarter. Then, it seemed like we picked up a little bit. I give South their credit. They fought to the end."

Shawnda Wills led Hancock (5-9) with game-high totals of nine points and 11 rebounds. Kris Creek added eight points and five assists, while Brandy Jenkins had four steals and three blocked shots for the Panthers.

"We played awful," South coach Ray Singletary said. "We didn't come to play and they beat us. They did a good job of playing the zone and exploiting our weakness, which is shooting. We couldn't get the ball inside. We had a lot of trouble scoring. We had trouble shooting foul shots. Our focus wasn't here tonight. "South hit only 21 percent (3 of 14) of its free throws.

Hancock led the entire ballgame, starting at 3-0 in the first 37 seconds of the game as Wills hit her first of two 3-pointers.

The Panthers ended the first quarter with a 9-7 lead en route to a 15-11 advantage at halftime.

Hammond scored to bring South within 15-13 with 6:45 to go in the third quarter. But Hancock followed with a 10-2 spurt to close out the period to boost its lead to 25-15.

Creek scored the final five points of the third quarter for the Panthers on a 3-pointer and a layup.

The Panthers scored 12 of the last 16 points of the game to ice the victory.